


What the Blessed Do

by Elenothar



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, Familial Relationships, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25954447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenothar/pseuds/Elenothar
Summary: 5 scenes from Finrod's life, from departing Tirion to his return.Written for Tolkien Gen Week.
Relationships: Finarfin | Arafinwë & Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Finrod Felagund | Findaráto & Galadriel | Artanis
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32
Collections: Tolkien Gen Week 2020





	What the Blessed Do

**Author's Note:**

> Finally got around to putting my tumblr ficlets for the event up here - my first Silmarillion fanfic, which was all the more daunting for having been a fan of the book for such a long time.

*

**familial**

It was his firstborn that Arafinwë turned to, when the shadow grew too dark on his thoughts to be borne any longer. Light still shone in Findaráto’s face, pure and comforting, even on this murky beach far to the north of their fair city of Tirion, abandoned in unwise haste.

He had always been a mirror of Arafinwë himself, alike in stature and features, but Findaráto’s eyes were those of his mother – the clearest blue of the sea under sunshine, but a stormy grey when in turmoil. These keen eyes were now focused on him and laid all his sorrows bare.

“You mean to turn back,” Findaráto murmured. He didn’t sound surprised and neither was there judgment in his voice or words. It wouldn’t have changed anything, but Arafinwë was nonetheless glad to not be parted on a sour note.

He inclined his head. “Having heard the Doom of Mandos, all the doubt in my heart wins out. I cannot forget the blood at Alqualondë, nor the fell oath that Fëanáro and his sons swore. Our people do not deserve that.”

Findaráto’s gaze softened in an understanding that had already been there, but it was clear that he had wished to hear his reasons from his father’s tongue.

“Many will go with you,” his son said, looking back towards the distant light of Aman. “But not, I deem, all of our people. Who would you have lead them?”

“It is not your burden,” Arafinwë said, already knowing his objection to be futile.

Findaráto smiled at him, lopsided but true. There was not a speck of accusation in his voice. “By birth it is. All my siblings are resolved to go on, and so is Turukáno. I’d be loath to be parted from them.”

The wind howled mournfully around them, dimming the voices of the other Noldor a mere few paces away. His son’s reasons might be nobler than what drove many on this forlorn march, but with the foresight given to him Arafinwë knew that it would not save Findaráto from a fate no kinder than that of those with less kind intentions.

Finally, Arafinwë sighed. There was too much to say, and too little of it would be of any help. “You are resolved to this course?”

Many emotions he read on his son’s face, sorrow, regret, apprehension, determination and even some of that stubbornness that drove Artanis to ever-new heights, another legacy of his house. But no fear – not yet.

“I must be,” Findaráto finally said, a long exhale taking the last of his indecision with it. He smiled then, one of Nienna’s smiles – sad and joyful all at once. “Remember me well, father.”

He spoke this promise gladly, to a son he would not hold in his arms again for centuries to come.

As Findaráto had predicted, much of the third host turned back with him. Arafinwë looked back only once, having ascended a small hill, to see the vanishing flames of his children’s golden hair in the darkness.

**solo**

The wilds of Beleriand were like nothing Finrod had ever seen. Aman was wondrous, yes, but here there were trees of unknown type, a myriad of new and fascinating plants, species of animals that had evolved down distinctly different paths from their cousins in the land of the Valar, and weather that conformed to no one’s higher power. It was dangerous and unlawful, in a way that not even Oromë’s woods had seemed in the safety of Aman, and yet the new things he discovered every day of his wanderings made the risk undoubtedly worthwhile.

Though _some_ doubt may have crossed his mind on a few occasions, say, when he was busy being chased up a tree by a bear.

It would’ve been an easy enough task to slay it, but Finrod had no wish to kill or even hurt such a magnificent beast when he had no need for furs or (barely palatable) bear meat. Unfortunately for him, he had rapidly realised that Beleriand’s bears could be bloody fast when they wanted to be, and his plan to swiftly round it at a fair distance had fallen apart as soon as he started the attempt.

So now he was sitting in a rather sturdy oak, peering down at the agitated bear pacing the ground below. He must’ve accidentally strayed too close to her den and cubs. Finrod supposed he could wait out the bear’s ire, safe up in his tree, if not for the looming storm clouds on the horizon, which threatened to make such a stay perfectly unpleasant, and the hapless tree suffering under the occasional swipes of the bear’s massive paws.

Poor thanks for offering a passing elf such excellent shelter. Its leaves kept shaking indignantly near Finrod’s head.

At least Turgon wasn’t here to laugh at him.

Settling himself more firmly on the branch, Finrod began to sing. He sang of honey and warm sun, of comfortable moss and content cubs, of slumber. The music swirled around the bear like a gentle wave, whispering to animal instincts just as much as it would have elvish ones.

Eventually the bear let out a mighty yawn and stretched out at the base of the tree. A deep, rhythmic rumble reached Finrod’s ears.

All he had to do now was exit the tree with nary a sound and he could make his escape. A brief moment of amusement seized him halfway down the trunk – if only his siblings could see him now, tiptoeing around a sleeping bear in the wild forest, no dignity at all to be found.

Well, dignity didn’t do much help for those who weren’t alive to enjoy it.

**diversity**

Finrod could admit, if only to himself, that the building of Nargothrond had perhaps gripped him in slightly too fervent a fever. Architecture had always been of interest to him – in Tirion that had meant art and decorativeness more than defensibility and sturdiness, but the same fascination nonetheless reared its head now. He liked to think that the Lord Ulmo had sent him to the River Narog and Turgon to wherever Turgon had disappeared to (fewer caves and more air, if Finrod knew his friend at all) because the Vala had understood the pleasure it would bring Finrod to create grand underground halls of beauty and functionality, quite aside from the obvious strategic uses of a hidden elven stronghold in Beleriand.

While Menegroth loomed large in his mind, Finrod knew better than to try to recreate something crafted with the help of a Maia. Instead he had laboured long on the drawing of detailed plans – halls had taken shape under his fingertips, gates and rooms and hidden lookouts.

The same plans which Hervór was now bending over with a critical eye.

“You’ve got a good eye for this,” Hervór announced eventually, sounding grudgingly impressed.

They got along rather well, considering that most dwarf-elf interaction was grudging to some degree (owing, in Finrod’s opinion, equally to the secrecy of the dwarves and the unfortunate elvish tendency to think themselves the superior race in most matters). At least once she’d explained to him, with a surprising degree of patience, that _she_ was in fact a dwarrowdam, not a dwarrow, and would like to be referred to as such. Mortified at the misunderstanding, Finrod had of course obliged, and received a truly fascinating lecture about dwarven genders for his troubles. Apparently, their custom was not to take biology as the main indicator, but let every dwarf child choose which gender spoke most to them once they were old enough to form an opinion on such matters. It sounded like a most efficient system.

She tapped on an outer part of the map of the caves that had been painstakingly assembled over the last few weeks. “The surveyors said this is the least stable area. You might need extra shoring there, particularly if you want to expand the natural caves outward.”

“We will have to,” Finrod murmured, gaze caught on his sketch of the throne room. Unlike his sister, he had not gone into exile intending to become a king. “The caves are too small to provide refuge for a whole people.”

Hervór’s dark eyes glinted under her bushy eyebrows. “Are you expecting trouble, lord?”

That he expected trouble was quite evident from the plans in front of them – and the fact that Finrod had chosen this particular set of caves for his new city in the first place.

“My heart, mind and foresight all warn me such,” Finrod said, a quiet sigh stirring the air. “But even were it not so, is there not a dwarvish saying which urges to rather have one column too many, than one too few?”

She laughs at that, deep and hearty. “We do indeed, though I shan’t ask where you heard it. I do not disapprove, but rather was surprised to find such dwarvish pragmatism in an elf.”

Finrod laughs too then. “The times are indeed strange.”

**group dynamic**

It had taken Finrod three weeks to become fluent enough in this language of men to communicate with them on a meaningful level.

The first week had mostly consisted of him pointing at things listening carefully to the corresponding word. That process had brought surprising amounts of joy to everyone in the camp, but particularly the young ones. For several days, Finrod was often surrounded by a gaggle of children, enthusiastically pointing at everything they could see and shouting words. They were hard not to adore, particularly for an elf – he couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen this many children in one place. Even in peaceful Aman, elves rarely had many children close together.

So he indulged them, even when the words started repeating, since there were only so many novel things to point at or mime easily. And while they laughed when his pronunciation of terms was strange, they did so joyfully, without malice.

Once a day, while most of the humans slept, Finrod settled himself under a tree and walked through the memories of his day and sorted through all the words he had learned until he started understanding the structure of different words, could differentiate nouns and verbs by their endings and put together much of the conjugations and declensions of this mannish language.

The next week was dedicated to more abstract concepts and required many gestures and broken sentences from him, trying to explain his meaning with the limited vocabulary he’d already acquired. Most of the children lost interest then, since many of those words were new to them, too, but some lingered in his presence while he talked to their elders.

One little girl, distantly related to Balan, whom Finrod had met first, asked shyly whether she might braid his hair, and that day Finrod walked around with flowers woven into a slightly lop-sided braid that fell over his shoulder.

Sometimes he was distracted from his linguistic studies by requests for music, which he was always happy to indulge. Whenever he sang and played the harp, Balan’s people gathered around him and listened with rapt attention, like their own music could not compare.

In the third week, Finrod worked on mastering the pronunciation – he would always sound “elvish” compared to any human speaking it, or so Balan told him with a smile (though he said it was a good thing, and then entirely failed to explain what he meant by it), but not to the extent that he should fear laughter. Now that his vocabulary had grown, he could also ask about aspects of grammar that he hadn’t been able to deduce on his own, though often the answer was incomprehension of the question. For Balan’s people language just _was_ – they didn’t bother giving aspects of it names like the Eldar had.

In fact, his rapid learning had caused more than a little awe. Balan informed him that it was not uncommon for other men to need a year or more to grasp a language they had not spoken from childhood fully, and Finrod was well on his way within weeks.

When he asked around, others just shrugged and said they’d chalked it down to yet more of his elvish strangeness.

Balan, for his part, was still determined to learn Finrod’s tongue – Sindarin would be more useful for him, Finrod reasoned – but his progress was indeed much slower than Finrod’s own, though less hampered by lack of understanding between them.

A full moon journey after Finrod had first encountered the camp of Men, he sat at the fire and sang one of their long songs with them, understanding more than just the spirit of its music.

**gray spaces**

Finrod learned to weave when he was a boy, over the course of many golden, innocent days in Aman. He’d been fascinated by the movement of the shuttle across the strands when his mother had sat at her loom, and equally fascinated by the beautiful pictures that had slowly taken form under her skilful guidance. So Eärwen had taught him, patient with his small hands and limited imagination.

The night before he left Nargothrond with Beren, Finrod dreamed of weaving and a mother’s tears.

The weaving of song had not been one of his mother’s skills, but instead a pastime Finrod had pursued with Maglor, back in more innocent days. Maglor had always been the more skilled of the two of them, but even as a young elf Finrod had not been given to jealously – had instead listened with fascination as Maglor drew dreams into reality, made trees grow, shaped a house, with nothing more than his voice.

Standing before Morgoth’s lieutenant, fell like his dark master, Finrod sang for his life and those of his companions. The light of Valinor was in his voice while it endured, but it could not stand against Sauron’s malice and the Noldor’s past transgressions.

Maglor might’ve done better, Finrod thought as he languished in dungeons newly-built in his own fair tower, now desecrated. But Maglor had also been less interested in the subtleties of song – the very fine weave that it was taking all of Finrod’s waning will to maintain. Their identities were yet obscured from even Sauron’s insight. A quiet song of water wended through all their minds, an echo of Ulmo’s place in the first music.

In the music, he could hear his ten companions take heart from their connection, even as they were torn away one by one. Only Beren seemed unaware, unable to hear the song that kept him sane, and that was a regret Finrod would bear past his death.

Silently, Finrod still sang until the last.

**platonic**

Even from afar, the golden shine of his sister’s hair in the morning sun of Valinor was visible to keen elven eyes. Finrod shaded his face with his hand, smiling at the small ship’s approach. This last of reunions he had longed for drew nearer with every broken wave to shore.

A small group of elves had gathered at the shore. The conventions surrounding returns from Mandos’ Halls, including not overwhelming the returned with the presence of too many people waiting anxiously, had largely transferred to arrivals from within the bounds of the world. Immediate family and loved ones were hailed by the watchers on Tol Eressëa, while everyone else waited for the newcomers to seek them out when they were ready.

As the ship finally docked, Finrod sat down on the quay not far from it, legs swinging over the edge.

He had no close connection to any of the elves on board aside from his sister (and a friendship with Círdan which had had little room to flourish before Finrod perished) and her first reunion belonged to Celebrían. He was content to give mother and daughter space for it. Instead he watched, with some curiosity, as Olórin helped two small beings disembark – those had to be the famed hobbits, who he would dearly love to speak to one day but did not wish to crowd immediately. They would have to contend with enough strange elves as it was.

Then his niece turned her attention to her long-sundered husband and Galadriel’s eyes met his. When she smiled, much of the last vestige of disquiet in his spirit evaporated like fine sea mist in the sun.

She, who had once been a little standoffish about gestures of affection from her older brothers, swept him up in a hug as soon as he had stood, no hesitation at all in her bearing, just a warmth that transmitted through the strength of her grip.

“Onóro,” she said, so quiet the sound would only reach his ears. “I have missed you.”

He breathed an agreement into her shoulder – she had always been so _tall_ – their golden hair mingling, radiant in the sun.

Finally, she pulled back, the look on her face a familiar one of mischief.

“First elf to get reembodied in Aman, brother? You always were an overachiever.”

“Says the only one of us who managed to survive the First Age,” Finrod returned, unable to help his smile even if he’d wanted to repress it. “And _you_ were always the ambitious one, my brilliant little sister.”

His sister’s gaze dropped to her hand, where a ring of adamant shone white.

Finrod looked at her for permission, and upon receiving it bent down to inspect the ring carefully, a fingertip tracing the blossom adorning its front.

“There are traces of Celebrimbor in this ring still.” His mouth quirked, a sadness spilling from the corners. “I heard what happened to him, in the end.” Finrod looked up into her eyes then. “You helped do what I could not – thank you.”

“Thanks have never been necessary between us,” Galadriel rebuffed, though gently. Her eyes flashed, and for a moment Finrod beheld Galadriel as she could have been, the terrible empress, not his wise baby sister. “Sauron more than deserved what he got.”

“No argument from me,” Finrod, who still sometimes dreamed of wolves’ maws, said. By now they were the last still standing on the pier. He looked out across the sea for another three heartbeats, then turned his face towards Tirion. “Father and Mother are waiting for you.”

Galadriel nodded and when she followed him away from the haven of Alqualondë, her tread was still as light on the ground as it had ever been.

**free**

The festival to mark the occasion of the last (awaited) ship from Middle-earth arriving was already in full swing by the time Finrod arrived with Nerdanel, having rather lost track of the time while debating the merits of various methods for shaping jade.

“Looks like the feast started without us,” Finrod observed with a grin, earning an eyeroll from his companion.

His aunt had never been one for social gatherings. In fact, his visit to her workshop today had been prompted by his mother strongly hinting that someone should make sure Nerdanel actually came to the festivities. Finrod had volunteered cheerfully, as he got along rather well with Nerdanel. Though they hadn’t bene close before the Noldor rebellion, they had spent a fair bit of time together after his reembodiment – she because she was desperate for news of her sons even as she struggled to hear of their deeds, and he because he occasionally needed a less smothering ear confide in. Not that he begrudged his parents their care, had in fact needed it badly just after his return from Mandos, but eventually he had needed a bit more breathing space.

Neither Fëanor nor any of his sons had yet returned from Mandos, but the burden on Nerdanel had lifted a little of late. Talk of forgiveness of asking the Valar for further pardons (incited by Elrond Peredhel no less) had grown louder. Finrod, for his part, welcomed the possibility, though he knew that not all his mother’s kin were equally as enthusiastic at the notion of releasing the ringleaders of several kinslayings.

But tonight was for joy, not maudlin contemplation.

“Come on,” he urged when Nerdanel looked like she was about to turn tail entirely, and started heading towards Finarfin and Eärwen.

Both his parents smiled at him as he approached, still always so pleased to see him even after many years of living together once more. It was more humbling, his parents’ love, than Finrod had ever dreamed of comprehending when he was young.

Though in this case, his father also looked like he was badly in need of a distraction. The Vanyarin choir sang beautifully, but people kept coming up to the High King of the Noldor anyway and while Finarfin had always born the crown with grace, he was still unhappy that his older brother had flat-out refused to take it back once he returned from the halls. Fingolfin claimed it was because Finarfin was doing such a great job – and besides why upset things now? – whereas his younger brother maintained that Fingolfin just didn’t want to deal with the headache that came with being in charge of such a disparate group of elves as the Noldor had become.

Finrod kept well out of that argument, safe in the knowledge that Finarfin was unlikely to die here in Valinor, leaving him quite safe from possible succession. (He tried not to remember that Fingon had also thought such, once upon a time.)

“I apologise for our tardiness,” Finrod said merrily, “we – ”

“ – got distracted,” his parents chorused alongside him, equally amused and indulgent.

Eärwen turned to Nerdanel, her cheeks dimpling. “What was it this time, sister?”

“Jade carving,” Nerdanel grunted, her eyes on Elrond, who was sitting under one of the tall trees ringing the clearing on the lower slopes of the Pelóri they’d chosen for this celebration, deep in conversation with Gil-galad and Celebrimbor. The little stream that ran along the edge of the trees carried a familiar echo of Ulmo’s power – although Finrod would of course never voice such an opinion aloud, Ulmo was his favourite Vala, for the care he’d shown the Noldor in exile as much as the gift of Nargothrond’s location. If some of the Vala’s spirit lingered here to observe the festivities, Finrod would not begrudge him the proof of his efforts to once more reunite the Eldar and the Blessed Realm.

“Very fascinating,” Finrod put in helpfully, as his father raised an eyebrow. Finarfin had always tended more to disciplines of the mind and small jewel-working than larger projects such as sculptures.

Finrod helped himself to a glass of clear peach wine before sitting next to his mother. Nerdanel snagged something rather more alcoholic and excused herself to join the group around Elrond.

Taking an appreciative sip – they never had managed to produce quite such good alcohol in Beleriand – Finrod leaned back, his elbows cushioned by the lush grass and observed the gathering. The House of Fëanor’s absence was glaring as always, but most of the House of Fingolfin and Finarfin were assembled, alongside many Vanyar, Amarië among them, and more Teleri than usual. Círdan was surrounded by long-lost family and looking stoically pleased about it. Galadriel had dragged Angrod and Aegnor to talk with many of her husband’s kin. Fingon was cheerfully discussing something with Idril and Tuor, who as yet was not showing any signs of succumbing to the doom of Men. Another group of Gondolindrim, including Ecthelion, Duilin, and – much to Finrod’s amusement – Turgon were being interrogated with great earnestness by one of the two hobbits that now dwelled in Valinor. The older one, Bilbo, who rarely went anywhere without a quill and notebook.

Frodo the Ringbearer was sitting near them, a small smile on his face on his face as he watched his Uncle consternate and charm elves of legend in equal measure. He was alone. Finrod hummed to himself and stood.

Time to meet a hobbit.

*


End file.
